The Warren County Emergency Communications Center received its first sales tax increase since its inception in 1994 after voters passed Prop E Tuesday with 66.86% of voters supporting the ballot initiative.
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The Warren County Emergency Communications Center received its first sales tax increase since its inception in 1994 after voters passed Prop E Tuesday with 66.86% of voters supporting the ballot initiative.
It will be the first sales tax increase the center has received since its existing sales tax was passed in 1994. According to unofficial election results, the measure received 2,798 votes for passage compared to 1,387 votes, or 33.14%, who were in opposition.
“I’m just so elated that the community came out and supported us,” said Director Amy Leach.
Leach said the increase will be used to fund the hiring of additional 911 dispatchers, expand the dispatch center and upgrade their radio system.
The sales tax is the dispatch center’s only source of revenue, and the only way they can receive additional funds is by passing a sales tax increase.
Leach said she had been optimistic since “we weren’t asking for much” but emphasised that they had been careful in deciding how large of an increase to request, and did not want to place an undue burden on taxpayers.
As the county’s population has grown, call volumes for the dispatch center have also increased. Leach said those increases have led to a need for additional dispatchers, which in turn leads to a need for space for them to work.
“It just shows that the community has been listening, … They believe in the first, first responders,” said Leach.
The additional radio frequencies that would also be funded through the sales tax increase would allow the dispatch center to dedicate radio frequencies to individual agencies or events as opposed to operating them all on one frequency.
Leach said while the decision to move forward to improvements will fall on the dispatch center’s board, she wants to move forward as soon as possible.
The dispatch center’s board will meet later this month to discuss their next steps moving forward. Leach said as there are so many different aspects of their planned expansion there will be plenty to discuss.
She continued saying the first thing she was going to do when she came into the office Wednesday morning was begin developing a timeline for when, and how they could go about conducting their expansions and improvements.
She had previously said the first step would be to hire additional dispatchers. The center currently employs 16 dispatchers in total and four of them work 12-hour shifts at one time.
With the increase, they plan to hire four more dispatchers and increase shifts to five at one time.
“We’re going to bring everybody to the table to organize, developing a timeline is the first step,” said Leach.
She clarified there would be no interruption in services during construction and they would bring trailers for the dispatchers to work out of while work was done on the building.
